Do you know what ANTIMATTER is?

I'm sure many of you have heard or read about antimatter in science fiction movies, books, videos, on the internet.

This topic has been widely used by scientific publishers and also by film producers, in which they have created stories where antimatter is a novel subject that can be handled by the human being in the future, always showing us antimatter as a strange manifestation of energy which allows human beings (using a great advanced technology) to do extraordinary things, activities that can only be seen in the future. However, although many don't know it, antimatter is real, exists and is not a recent invention, it was even created in the beginning of the Universe, in the big explosion, in the Big Bang. Certainly, this type of matter is actually very scarce on our planet.

A particularity of this type of material is that it is made up of antiparticles, for example: For a hydrogen atom that is composed of a proton and an electron, the "antihydrogen" atom is composed of an antiproton and an antielectron (commonly called positron), many people think that being an antiparticle simply means having the opposite charge, saying that if the electron has a negative charge, the positron will have a positive charge and this is largely true, however it does not define in its entirety what an antiparticle means. An example of this can be seen with neutron, it has neutral charge and yet has its antiparticle the antineutron, so how can this be possible? what defines a particle as the antiparticle of another particle? This definition is really deep and obeys the laws of quantum physics, explained by the introduction of even more elementary particles, the Quarks, which compose neutrons at a lower level, which means they are even smaller particles than protons, and neutrons, and given the configuration of these Quarks, neutrons or antineutrons are generated...

A very important characteristic of this physical phenomenon is that, if we place antiproton to collide with a proton, these both will be annihilated and release a large amount of energy, ie when the matter touches the anti matter both are destroyed. If we have, for example, 10 electrons in a box (let's imagine a common box, this time I won't ask us to imagine a box of one dimension as physicists usually do) and let time pass. Over time the 10 electrons will still be there, repelling each other. Now we do place 3 antielectrons inside this box, at some point these three antielectrons will make contact with an electron, so, over time (we do not know how much this defines the statistical physics) we will have 7 electrons, ie 3 antielectrons will have destroyed 3 electrons. Of course at the end of everything we will not have a box and only 7 electrons, because the fact that they are destroyed will generate a lot of energy, which could destroy part of the box. Ignoring the fact that little or a lot of energy is produced, it is important to make clear the incompatibility of these two types of matter existing in our universe.

Energy balance of the process explained. "Energy is neither created nor destroyed." We can calculate this data with the Mass - Energy ratio proposed by Einstein

I invite you to make the theoretical calculation of how much energy is released in this process, I am waiting for you in the comments. 🤓

Although many people don't believe it, Gold is not the most expensive thing in this world, neither is Platinum, nor oil, nor even Diamond, it has been calculated that the most expensive chemical species on the planet today is antimatter, since only one milligram (not even one gram) of antimatter could cost up to $62500. It is the most expensive substance in the world because the production of antimatter in addition to consuming enormous amounts of energy is really difficult, because as I explained before, it is destroyed when it comes into contact with the common matter that abounds on our planet, so it is really expensive to generate equipment capable of storing this type of matter because it requires an electromagnetic field that can isolate the antiparticles from the surrounding environment, because this is the only way to prevent them from being destroyed. It is known that of all the antimatter created, only 1% of it can be correctly stored, the remaining 99% is destroyed in the process of artificial creation. (Currently at CERN).

The great uses that it may have in the future, is the generation of energy, since, when destroyed with common matter, it releases a large amount of energy that is given by the famous Albert Einstein equation. The energy generated is equal to the mass of matter contemplated in the process, multiplied by the speed of light squared. At first glance we might think that an electron with an antielectron might not generate as much energy, and it is true, however, we know that the speed of light is a fairly large number and is also squared so we can calculate that the energy generated per kilo is really huge, is about 8.99 x 10 ^16 J. To compare, the Hiroshima pump caused an energy release equivalent to 54.4 x 10^12 J with an approximate weight of 4400 Kg.

For example, it is estimated that only 10 mg of antimatter would be needed to propel a ship from here to Mars. However, energy dissipation by heat transfer, neutrino generation, etc. must also be taken in consideration. Even so, the amount of fuel that would be needed in the future to propel a ship from here to Mars should not exceed 30 mg, which is why it is planned that in the future it will be the antimatter, together with common matter, the great source of fuel that will optimize the use of them, and generate energy without side effects such as pollution, so the great promise of antimatter is the source of energy (which may be the most powerful known to man so far). However, let us hope that this use is always entirely in favor of the evolution of human beings on this planet, and not for destruction, as we have seen, nuclear technology has been quite useful for power generation, but unfortunately it was also used to destroy for warlike purposes, used in wars to kill the "enemy". It would be quite dangerous for antimatter to be used for war purposes, since its power is far greater and the danger could also be the greatest danger in human hands.

As I have said so far, this is simply an estimate of what the future might hold, as the process of obtaining antimatter is currently extremely expensive and complicated. In addition, the technologies used for its storage have not been fully developed (it has a rather low performance), with the antimatter currently generated you could only light a light bulb for a few minutes....

We are still waiting for the great developments that the future will bring, you decide whether to be a spectator or a doer. Every day we can learn something new.

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